Before
I felt my eyes dropping heavy; I gathered all my strength not to let them close. My eyelids felt heavy, my eyes felt like blinking sand, but I refused to give it up.
She was folding my dirty clothes, I always giggled when she did such. Why would anyone fold clothes just to toss them in the wash?
We watch one another in silence, my warm hands holding onto the blanket as I tried with all I had to stay awake. But I blinked. A slow, sleepy blink. My eyes watered a bit, and she laughed.
“Alright, sleep time!”
“Aw no! I’m ok!” And opening my eyes as much as I could, I added, “See?”
Auntie Clara laughed some more, leaving the dirty clothes behind, smiling that way only she could do. I sighed, Clara looked like a movie star.
She was always wearing the most beautiful dresses, colours that complemented her golden shiny skin and perfect golden hair. My great-aunt - tia- was way prettier than the stars we watched in the movies, especially in her fifties.
“What about a story first?” She negotiated.
I would have to say no, I wanted to watch TV with her or play a game of cards; she was teaching me all the things Grandma never let. But I enjoyed tia’s stories, so I nodded and getting comfortable in bed.
Tia Clara took her shoes off and wiggled her toes, making me laugh. She had red painted nails and promised me I could do the same if I promised not tell Grandma.
She sat with a flourish on the bed, pretending it was posh but actually making the bed bounce so hard I had to hold myself not to fall to the floor. I rolled over holding my pillow laughing as tia said, “What’s the problem, dear?”
I laughed more; she kept bouncing in my bed, making me jump up and down like popcorn in the pot. It was almost impossible to hold on. I called it, the bouncy bed; she called the posh lady sitting.
“What story you want to hear today, Bette?” I was asked as our laughs quieted down.
“Hmm…” I thought about it. Tia had a way to make all stories amazing, I could pick anything.
“Tell me about my name?” I smiled sleepily.
Tia laughed and shook her head, I asked to hear that one at least once a week “Alright, alright, settle down then.”
I agreed promptly, bringing my covers over my chin, watching my tia attentively.
She tucked me in, smoothing the covers with the perfectly manicured hands, “You mother wasn’t sure what she would name you…”
“What were the options?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Carolina…”
“No!” I shouted.
“Marcela?”
“No!”
“What about plain and simple Maria?”
I shook my head with a smile. Tia Clara came closer in a whisper, “I told her she couldn’t name you anything like that. You had to have a special name for a special girl. So I told her, what about Bette?”
“Like Bette Davis,” I completed as she straightened herself, looking down to me with the best smile.
Tia shrugged, “But she said it was a bit old-fashioned.”
“Did you give up, tia?”
“Oh no, I didn’t. I knew well how special your name had to be.”
“What made her change her mind?”
Tia looked at me with a gigantic smile. So many times she told me that story, to me, it was the best story ever told. It had everything; the mother I’ve never known and the mother I ended up having.
“One day when her belly was so big because you were growing sassy in there…”
I giggled.
“One day she heard the song and…”
“Sing the song, tia!”
She made a face, shaking her head, but as she turned off the lamp beside my bed she sang, “And she’ll tease you, she’ll unease you…”
I closed my eyes, feeling comfortable with her voice.
I felt tia’s warm palm on my cheek, “You started bouncing and kicking like crazy in her belly,” she told me, interrupting her own singing.
I smiled, turning my face to the soft pillow, seconds from falling fast asleep.
“She got Greta Garbo’s stand-off sighs, she’s got Bette Davis eyes…” Tia kept singing and singing, and the warmth of her voice intertwining with my dreams.
“There are few people who I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.”- Jane Austen
Now
I chuckled, shaking myself as I read again the text from tia.
“What’s it?”
I lift my chin to find Eric watching me with a frown. What was up his butt lately?
I shrugged, “Tia is wondering if I got her a smartphone to use the GPS and keep tabs on her.”
I giggled again, tia Clara’s texts had much more swearing, and a full-blown theory of how I had once tried to instal a chip up her…
Eric wasn’t a fan of tia’s humour. He thought she tried too hard to shock, but I knew she wasn’t one to do anything that didn’t feel natural to her. And it wasn’t anyone’s fault that crass humour came so naturally to my favourite seventy-five-year-old.
“Why did you get her a phone?” He asked, eyes glued on the TV, re-watching the X-files for the third time.
“For jewels like this,” I shook my phone in the air, “I knew tia with the ability to text would be a blessing.”
Eric puffed, “Old people and technology….”
I curled my lips; he was in a mood.
Eric and I were together since together was invented. I knew everything that was to know about him; we were friends first, obviously because I met Eric when we were just five-year-old. Eric was my boyfriend since I was thirteen and he was my first kiss.
I knew he was in a grim mood and trying to pick a fight, but fighting wasn’t my thing though. I plopped myself on the couch beside him, leaving tia’s conspiracy theories behind.
“What’s going on?” I asked, one hand caressing the short brown strands of hair just beside his ear.
“Nothing,” he caught my hand, “I can’t hear when you do that.”
I lifted my eyebrow to the TV’s dialogue I heard many times before, “If I know this by heart, I’m sure you do too. What’s going on?”
Eric paused the TV, making a big deal out of it. As turning to me, he sighed, his chest going up and down like something big was coming. It was probably something at his house, Eric and his Dad weren’t exactly close. I didn’t want to guess though; I didn’t want to point out that he complained about my mother figure, but at least we never fought. Not even once.
I waited patiently, but soon enough he shook his head, “The guys are being loud as usual,” he said, I knew referring to the two friends he lived with.
I nodded, his flatmates were lovely people, but they liked parties more than Eric for sure.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, “Why don’t you stay here this weekend?”
He shook his head straight away, “Hm, I’m busy with a couple of projects…”
I laughed, “Yes, as much as I loved how excited for a couple’s weekend you were, I meant staying over alone. I’m going to Santa Barbara.”
“Again?”
I nodded, almost feeling guilty?
“You were there last weekend,” he accused.
“Well, I made plans with tia. But works great, doesn’t it? You can stay over and work here. All free for you.”
Again Eric opened his mouth, but no sound came out of it. He nodded a beat later I gave him a closed lipped kiss to seal the deal. I thought I did great fixing his problem, especially if peace and quiet helped his mood and distracted from the fact I was going to spend another weekend back to the town I was raised, Santa Barbara D’Oeste in the countryside of Sao Paulo.
Deciding to leave him with X-Files, I jumped out of the couch and turned when he asked: “What are you doing for the weekend?”
I opened an instant smile, “All About Eve matinee on the Cinema, I’m bringing tia.”
Eric nodded, he said nothing. No criticizing, no comment. Just a slow nod, and gave me the weird impression that things were going through his head, but he couldn’t grasp it just yet.
“I’m staying until Monday night, I have off Monday so…” I warned him, scared he was going to make a comment about me missing out on the exciting nightlife in Sao Paulo, but again, he said nothing. His head just turned back to the TV and our silence was swallowed by Mulder’s theories.
Three days later, I had my old car on the road to Santa Barbara D’Oeste. Three days that tried hard to understand Eric’s behaviour, after seventeen years of friendship wasn’t supposed to be this hard. I felt like the easy going nerdy guy who ordered the same pizza every weekend was gone. I got the paranoid guy instead. Eric one slept over once, brief sentences, long periods of silence and a restless knee painted his visit. After that, he said he had to go home to get organised for the weekend in my house, when I told him he should stay since we wouldn’t have time alone in the weekend, he got flustered and said no.
My primary clue was his discomfort with the flatmates. As I travelled alone, my brain worked without permission, going over the feeling Eric was only saying half of a word to me.
“Do you think he’s going to ask to move in together?” I asked quickly on the speakerphone to best friend, Tara.
“What?”
“Eric is acting weird.”
“Hmm.”
“He’s in a mood, I mean.”
“Did you destroy his Lego? Talked during the X-files?”
I talked during X-Files, but I would not admit that to her, “He’s annoyed with his flatmates for ages now, but now I really think…” I shook my head, “He was acting so weird. Like he was in the verge of telling me something.”
“Hmmm….” Tara said again, but making it much longer.
“Do you think he’s going to ask to move in together?”
“I… Maybe?” she tried.
I breathed deeply, “Alright.” I clasped the wheel, trying not to hyperventilate, “Oh wow, that’s so grown-up.”
“You are together forever…”
“Together since forever was invented,” I whispered knowing well Tara was rolling her eyes, “Hm” it was my turn to say, and then I frowned to my reflection in the mirror, “Yes, you’re right.”
“I said nothing.”
“No, you’re right, we are together forever why is he living with those guys and I’m overpaying for a studio… I mean it does makes financial sense.”
“Amiga, I don’t remember saying any of those things. I just stated the fact that you are with him forever. Perhaps if you wanted to live together, you would have when we moved out of Santa Barbara…”
“We were kids,” I stopped her right there, “That’s insane.”
“Ok,” she breathed, “So… what you’re saying if he asks?”
“Oh,” I bit my lip, “Yes?”
“Once more with feeling.”
“Oh, god, Tara, of course it’s a yes. We are together forever,” I tried to say it many times to calm my heart.
“And that’s final?” Tara confirmed.
“I think it’s wise,” I mocked.
“Hm. So are you telling tia?”
“I have nothing to tell her yet,” I knew if I looked at the mirror a liar would stare right back at me.
Of course, tia Clara was the last person I want to tell. Not just because truly, it was all speculations at that point, but also because I knew she wasn’t a fan of Eric. Tara knew it too, and that was the reason behind the next thing she said. “You should, she might have a brilliant way to see things…”
I chuckled, “Alright, we’ll see. I’m almost there, anyway.”
“Awesome,” she laughed too, “I wish I could’ve made it. Send me selfies of you nutters in the cinema, will you?”
“Of course, what else would we do?”
I hung up and faced the road ahead with a deep breath. My hands firmly in the two and ten position, I tried to organize my head. Wouldn’t be the worse thing to move in with Eric. I liked the security; I liked to know my next steps and just alongside with Tara and tia, Eric was the person I knew the most. As Tara, he was my friend since we were young; I copied his maths homework, and he copied my history’s. It was a profitable relationship even before I knew such a big word.
Sure, maybe I hadn’t envisioned to live with a boyfriend at twenty-two years of age, but life is nothing but a rollercoaster. The problem was that I hated rollercoasters.
By the time I reached Santa Barbara, I was convinced Eric and I were doing the right thing. If, of course, we were doing anything at all.
Tia Clara lived in the same house for her entire life, a quirky thing that she made it unique by installing teal shutters. Her front gate was open, as usual. It didn’t matter how many times I alerted her. Also, she believed little in the police to start with things, so she wasn’t one to care what they thought it was best, even an obvious thing like locking your front gate.
Aunt Clara was my grandad’s sister, my grandad being a serious, no nonsense kind of lawyer and tia being this fairy that floated around. You could cut the tension with a knife when they were in a room together, everyone knew they did not get on. The rest of the family followed granddad and grandmother’s laws. The Menezes were a serious bunch, with money, class and not a fun bone on their bodies.
And then there was tia and I.
“Tia?” I called, knocking on the door.
I waited, but just for a second. When I lifted my fist to knock again she opened the door, “I heard you the first time.”
“What did I tell you about locking the front gate?”
She waved me off like I was an annoying bug and I had to bite my lip from laughing. Tia turned around, and I followed her in. The sitting was a museum of our lives. All the things we had done together, our adventures, our many trips to the Cinema or to a new restaurant just because. Right in the middle of a console beside the window rested a golden framed picture of us when I was ten and moved with her permanently. Tia’s enormous smile and my watery one holding my Power puff girl’s bag to my chest. I remembered that day perfectly, and I smiled, brushing my fingers over our faces.
I must have taken a moment too long, because when I turned around, she was looking at me with a quirk on her right eyebrow and her arms crossed over her chest.
“I’m not dead yet.”
I frowned, “I’m allowed to love you in life, right?”
We looked at each other in dare; I wiggled my eyebrow, and she broke in a laugh. When I was born, tia was already a windowed, at the same age as my grandmother. Now in her seventies, she acted like no time had passed, but we both knew unfortunately did.
She was dressed in a white and blue shirt dress, like a stylish azulejo. Her white curls were pinned back with a couple of bobby pins too dark for her hair and complexion. But even with the age, the bobby pins and the sarcasm, it all made tia the life of any party.
“Yes, but tell it to my face, not to my picture.”
I laughed and shook my head in disbelief, tia frowned, “You look sad.”
“I’m not. Are you ready to go?” I occupied myself by looking for the car keys that had never left my hands.
“Oh, I know when you’re sad, young lady. You can have a sit and talk…”
“We’re going to be late.”
“The queen is never late, everybody else that’s early,” she told me like it was a beautiful lesson.
“That’s not how the Cinema works.”
I shut my mouth when it was clear we couldn’t go without first an obligatory heart to heart, but the thing was: I wasn’t sad. At least I didn’t think I was. I searched my feelings, but found nothing. Yes, maybe I wasn’t one hundred percent sold into the living together idea, but I would get there, eventually. I was a careful person who overreacted to change, but nothing of that translated into sadness.
I took a deep breath, “I’m not sad, tia. I’m introspective.”
“Why?” she fired up.
I wondered why I was making a big deal out of it. If I moved in with Eric, tia was going to be the first person I wanted to tell about it. It wasn’t like I was about to lie to her, hide my intentions. But deep inside, I felt tia would not be supportive, and I needed support.
I told myself she didn’t dislike Eric exactly, she simply never liked him as she liked many people in my life. Since we were young, Eric was treated with respect, but Tara’s presence was always met with extravagant joy. And even Tara’s older brother Lucas, who she saw only time to time, got the big hugs, the special meals, the long and sincere smiles.
But that woman was the most important person in my life, and maybe Tara was right, she was going to offer a brilliant point of view. I faced my tia with my eyebrows raised, inhaled all the air in the sitting room “Eric and I might move in together.”
Tia did not react at first. We both stared at each other and she said, “Why might?”
“He haven’t asked yet,” I swallowed and then shrugged, “But I think I might say yes.”
Tia thinned her lips, “So he hasn’t asked and you might say no.”
I shoot my head, “No. He hasn’t asked, but I believe I will say yes.”
Tia breathed, “I’m not one to tell you what to do with your life…”
“Great!” I said slapping my sweaty palms into my tights meaning to stand up.
“Mostly because you were never stupid, not because I don’t have the right,” tia was more than clear.
I turned to her with widened eyes, “You were never one to beat around the bush either. Tell me you don’t approve so we don’t miss the movie.”
“I think you’re too young,” she finally said.
My eyes went down to slits, “And that’s the only reason?”
“It’s a damn good one.”
I sighed, “We are together forever and…”
“I don’t think you understand how much a relationship can change when you move in together…” she interrupted.
“But what better way to learn? We can move in and try it out…”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
I shrugged again, “If it doesn’t work… well, we’ll know…” my heart fell heavy in my chest, the words felt foreigner, still and I shook my head, “Tia, Eric and I never fight. We are together forever. I promise you it will work out.”
We looked at each other for a beat too long, a breath too much. I knew she was holding herself more than she ever did around me, and I was guilty of the same. After, she ultimately nodded, her eyes searching for anything that wasn’t mine.
“Let’s watch the movie, then.”
The car ride wasn’t awkward, because there was no awkward between us. We played music, she told me it was too loud and then dared me to call her old. I laughed and wished once more I had never left Santa Barbara, her house.
I loved living in the city. I adored everything about Sao Paulo, but still it felt lonely at times. It felt like part of me went wondering in Avenida Paulista to never return.
I missed having tia so close, I missed the energy that existed between us. And even though I never saw her as an old lady, from time to time it came to me with this certainty that our time was running out.
We got into the cinema, with a huge popcorn bucket on our laps, a dozen of sweets I bought prior and hid in my bag. As we sat, she grabbed my hand, and I sent a smile her way, “You are smart, I know your are.”
“Thanks?” I replied confused.
“But I worry anyway,” she completed.
“That’s going to age you,” I replied, and she pinched me.
“Tia!” I exclaimed, and feeling self-conscious I whispered next, “You don’t need to worry about me. I have nothing decided yet anyway, he didn’t even ask.”
“So how come you know it’s coming ?”
The lights dimmed and the soft murmurs from the other cinema goers completely stopped. I watched the announcement about cinema rules in silence and when a trailer started, I dared to whisper, “He was acting weird. Complaining about his flatmates.”
“Hmm,” she replied.
I relaxed on my sit, watching the people move in the screen without actually seeing them.
“Are you disappointed?” I asked and turned to her.
Tia Clara was always a beautiful woman. I remember thinking that when I saw pictures of her youth, and I thought it now when her face told her story, and her eyes remained daring, “I’m never disappointed, you dummy,” she breathed in, “You’re fantastic. All the time.”
I smiled at her, even though I didn’t think it was true. I was many things, but I was sure I wasn’t fantastic all the time. Maybe okay. The film started, our film. We devoured our popcorn and sweets. I passed to her earplug because she always complained of the volume and she smiled in response.
“You know what sometimes makes me angry?” She said out of nowhere while we were driving back.
“What’s that?”
“I think you’re the only one who doesn’t know… you.”
“You think I don’t know myself? Are you trying to be dramatic on purpose?”
“Yes,” the answer came straight away.
I laughed looking straight to the street but stole a look to my side, “Yes to what?”
“Both.”
“I know myself.”
“You’re too young to know yourself, anyway. But it’s going to be great when you’ll see it at last.”
“That’s getting very…” I couldn’t put the words out.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I nodded, “Do you want to go for a drive?” I offered, even though we were just five seconds from the house.
“Yes.”
I turned left instead of right, and we turned up the music. I brought her everywhere in Santa Barbara, and we chatted for a long way past our bedtimes. My head felt clear, my heart was full.
My bedroom in her house was still the same, the posters I left up, my same lavender bedsheet, I sat on my old bed and smiled.
“You should go back early and talk to Eric,” she said from the door.
I sighed and bobbed my head, “Yeah, I should.”
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